


The Life and Death of Osmosis Jones

by cowboychris



Series: A Series of Essays on the Relativity of Morality [5]
Category: Osmosis Jones (2001)
Genre: Gore, Murder, Other, Suicide, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 14:55:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6288940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboychris/pseuds/cowboychris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>March 18th, 2016. That was the day I died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Life and Death of Osmosis Jones

**Author's Note:**

> This represents a step forward for cowboy chris, and its the first time we've tried to write a direct emotional piece. This work explores what it means to be human, the nature of morality itself, and the rise and fall of Osmosis Jones. TW for extreme violence.

March 18th. 2016. It wasn't a bad day, warm, cloudy. About as much as someone like me could ask for. That was the day I died.

Of course, part of me had died back in Vietnam. Even before that, now that I think about it. I think the beginning of the end was when I lost my faith in the force. I had joined the police to help people, to make people's lives better. I truly wanted to help and protect the weak. I truly believed that the state could be a force for good in people's lives. I had put away bacteria, viruses, criminals, I felt like I belonged. For the first time in my life, I felt truly happy where I was. Before that, I had struggled with crippling depression, poverty, and emotional instability. My time on the police, along with my partner Drix, was probably the happiest time in my life, now that I look back on it.

All of that changed when Aaron Carter stumbled into my life. I was so naive back then, god dammit. I didn't know of any of his criminal connections at the time, I had no idea how far deep the rabbit hole went. All I knew was that this popstar gave my life an energy I didn't know it lacked. I had been living on the law for so long, I forgot the sheer energy and exhilaration that came from living on the edge. I can't recall all the details, but Aaron sent me on a whirlwind of drugs, sex, violence, through the downtown alleys and shady clubs. I'm not even sure if I can't remember, or if I've simply blacked out the details from shame.

I lived a double life. At day, I was Osmosis Jones: Upstanding cop, proud citizen, civic servant, beloved hero of the city. I couldn't lose, every case was a success, every job a victory. At night, Aaron dragged me through clubs and drug labs, through back alleys and fights, through gang wars and carnage. I compartmentalized. For some time, this arrangement worked. I knew though, back in some corner of my head, that this couldn't last. I didn't want to accept it. 

The day it all came crashing down was when I interrupted a brutal fight between some stranger and Aaron. I knew that Carter would get himself in some sort of conflict sooner or later, that he was living on borrowed time. I didn't expect him to be caught in some brutal sadomasochistic sex act with this....person, who had just previously beat Aaron within an inch of his life. I thought Aaron was dead. Looking back, I wish that he was. I did what felt natural, I did what any rational person would do, and ordered the arrest of both of them.

Before I can even process what happens, the stranger says something about "kinkshaming" and suddenly my partners turn their guns on me. From his bloody, beaten posistion on the ground, Aaron cracked a bloody smile at me. My 'partners' shared this grim grimace at me, and it all clicked. 

This was a setup. It all made sense. Aaron had organized this from the start - his fight with this stranger, his brutal sexual encounter, everything from the beginning. He knew I would kinkshame him, and he bribed the cops to turn on me. He knew that he was soon to be wanted, and he set me up to take the fall.

I've never been able to confirm them of official corruption charges, but I felt it in my bones - well, my cell equivalent of bones because I'm a cell. The courts all declared me guilty on massive trumped-up charges, and I was stripped of my title and sentenced to 420 years in prison. In one evening, I had went from the city's golden boy to their most wanted prisoner. 

The first few months of prison passed like a blur. I couldn't understand it at first, I was living in complete denial. Surely this was a mistake, surely they'd spring me in a week, in a month. It was after a year in prison that I began to lose hope. I took my anger out on my fellow inmates, I started riots, I beat my fists against the walls until my blue hands mixed with blood red to become a vicious purple. I was lost, I was angry, I wasn't myself, I wasn't anyone.

I don't know how long I spent in that haze. I don't want to know how long it was.

I'm not sure when it happened, but someone I barely knew slipped me some package. I thought it was a drug drop or something, but I kept it hidden and safe until I got back to my cell. In retrospect, I'm not sure who this was, and I never saw them again. I unwrapped it in the privacy of my maximum security cell and gasped in surprise.

The Communist Manifesto.

By Karl Marx

This was a joke. It had to be. Who would give me a political treatise in prison? I had done nothing but suffer, and thats all I had planned on doing.

I didn't pay any attention to this book, because I then got a phone call from someone I barely knew, someone on the force. They said it was about my partner, in a tone of strict professionalism. Drix the pill couldn't handle the 'truth' about my criminal activities, and blew his brains out in his apartment. There was no sympathy in the officer's voice. I went completely numb. I had no reaction, and I expressed my anger purely through my fists.

Eventually, one brutal fight lead to another and I ended up killing a prisoner. Following that, I was transferred to solitary confinement.

I had nothing to live for, no one on the outside that cared about me, no one to help. The only person I had to offer a word of advice was Karl Marx.

I spent days, weeks, months reading over the Manifesto. I absorbed every word of it, and I learned the truth about capitalism, about society, about the struggle of the working class. I realized that my time on the police force was simply serving a corrupt regime that had to be destroyed. I remembered reading in the newspaper, the day of Drix's suicide, reading about the current conflict in Vietnam. I made plans to break out of my prison, and join the fight for the worker's revolution against the tyranny of the United States.

I struck a deal with the drug gangs throughout the prison. I would murder a few guards, a few other prisoners, and they would get me safe passage on a vessel to Vietnam. I knew that it was corrupt, but the deaths of a few worthless prisoners was worth it for the great revolution.

I don't want to recall those last few days in prison. I knew that I had nothing left there, and I acted brutally and without remorse. I had to fall to lose it all.

It was a blood filled week, and I was removed from my cell, shoved into a bag, and thrown onto a cargo ship. I was on the way to Vietnam.

The boatworkers threw me on the coast of Vietnam without any formalities. I was alone, in the jungle, with nothing except my clothes. I headed inland, determined to find the Viet Cong. Along the way, I encountered a pair of American soldiers in the depths on the jungle, wounded and bleeding to death. One of them had lost both his legs, the other was clearly catatonic from pain. I still remember how he croaked wearily, "Hey there pardner. Got a cigarette?" His dog tag said CHRIS. I was blinded with rage at these capitalist pigs. I took the combat knife from the soldier's boot and slashed both of their throats, letting them bleed to death slowly. No mercy for the capitalist slaves, I thought. After what seemed like an hour of silence, a group of guerrillas emerged from the jungle surrounding me. These were the Viet Cong. I knew it. They didn't speak a single word, but I gestured to the dead Americans. One of the guerrillas threw me a rifle, and my nightmare in Vietnam truly began.

Every bit of violence and hatred within me, every bit of anger that I had suppressed for so long, was unleashed. I became utterly numb to the violence I was partaking in, and the Vietnamese called me "the Blue Devil" for my cruelty and merciless. I must have killed dozens of soldiers, ours and theirs, I was completely lost in the madness. I still have flashbacks to the people I slaughtered, to the faces I mutilated. 

My world fell apart the last day I was in Vietnam. We had intercepted a shipment of amphetamines, and I was loaded of every drug I could think of in a victorious rage. We were celebrating in a bloody festival, slaughtering prisoners and civilians alike. I couldn't tell if they were Americans, Vietnamese, whoever. I just knew that I was in a primal state of rage and violence. The American bombers flew overhead like black shadows across the night sky, unbeknownst to us all.

The first firebomb destroyed the officer's tent, and my former allies poured our, their flesh burning. It was a nightmare of fire and death. All around me, fire claimed the lives of my partners, my brothers in arms, my communist comrades. I was in a haze of drugs and violence. I've felt this way before, so insecure. Crawling in my skin, I felt like my wounds would never heal. The american soldiers descended on us like a whirlwind, and the few survivors were executed by a bullet to the head and thrown in a ditch. I don't know why they kept me alive, but I was thrown on a ship and sent back to the United States. Everything I knew about life was gone, shattered in a miasma of blood and violence. I heard fighting on the ship, I heard arguing, and I wasn't sure if it was the US Army, the Mafia, or some other group that had taken me back. All I knew was that eventually I made my way back to the city, and I knew what had to be done. I was addicted to every kind of drug, and trapped in a nightmarish hallucinatory world. All I knew was that the one responsible for this had to die. Aaron had to pay.

I thrash violently, striking out wherever I could. I try to do as much damage as possible with my fists, but it's useless. Someone strikes my temple, and I'm knocked into unconsciousness. 

When I wake up, all I can see is white. White as far as the eye can see. The room is sterile, sterile and blinding. I stare at the ceiling, trying to remember the last few hours, but I draw a blank. I can remember nothing. 

When I look down, I am wearing white too. A white hospital gown. I chuckle silently, thinking about the color white. It is supposed to represent purity, innocence. I could not be farther from pure or innocent if I tried. If I really concentrate, I can see blood staining them. The blood of everyone I've ever killed in a drug-fueled rage is spilling out from my hands and all over my white gown. It is soaking red, and all I can smell is the metallic stench of blood. It's choking me -- I cant breathe. I fall to the floor in silent agony, twisting around in red. All of the sudden, I hear a creak from the end of the room and footsteps advancing towards me. I shaking turn my head up and see none other than Aaron Carter. 

"No..." I whisper. "No... NO!" I'm screaming now, just repeating the word "no" as Carter stands above me with a smirk in place. I feel tears burst from my eyes, but I am not sad. I don't know how I feel. I feel rage, I feel dread, I feel guilt. But I do not feel sadness. Anything but that. 

Carter kneels, and puts his face level with mine. My victim's red blood that is spilling from my hands starts to pool around his knees, turning his strange 1990's attire red with blood. He reaches out and touches my chin with his hand, rubbing his thumb in a comforting way over my jawbone. 

"Jones..." He coos. "It has been a while, hasn't it? Have you missed me?" 

I open to my mouth to reply, but I am instantly choked from the smell of blood again. I see guts swirling around the white room -- everyone I've killed, all of their innards, they're all here. They're all watching me. Their ancestors are watching me. All the families I've ruined, all of the husbands that will never return home. They're all here. 

Carter continues to rub my jawbone, and I finally feel my first emotion since entering this white abyss. It is rage. There is no surprise. 

I grab Carter's hand with my bloodstained one and yank it towards me, catching him off guard. He tumbles towards me and I use this opportunity to take a huge bite of his nose. I want to make him feel pain. I want revenge, sweet, sweet revenge. I want him to suffer as much as I have; to feel as much guilt, as much sorrow, as much agony as I have been through. I want him to experience my drug-rages, to see all of the innocent children I have slaughtered. He is screaming as his beautiful face fills with the cherry red of blood. The color is so pretty next to his flushed cheeks. I am in love with the sight. 

I take another bite, copying what I have seen before. Carter has gone through this, he will go through it again. I am repeating history, and I know I am. I must. Everything stays; everything is a cycle. Everything continues. What must happen will happen. I deliriously tell myself this as I bite into Aaron's eye, taking out his entire eyeball as he continues to gurgle in agony. He is on the edge of consciousness, but I don't want him to leave just yet. I want him to stay longer. 

"Please Aaron." I rasp out. "Stay with me, baby. Stay with me. Stay with me..." I repeat these words over and over again, my voice getting more hysterical as I continue. I choke these words out between bites of his flesh.

I pull his limp body towards me and start ripping it to shreds. Every inch of skin I can find is shredded until he is nothing but a mushy red pulp in my arms. I hold this pulp close to me, putting my lips on it and softly kissing it. I love it. I love Aaron so much. He is everything to me, he is in me. I love him more than anything I've ever loved anyone. I know this for sure. 

I lay his mangled corpse down and curl up on it, like it was a mat for sleeping. I look at the splattered blood and guts everywhere. I see the eyes of all those that I have killed still gazing at me, their sad, wide eyes just looking. Never saying anything. I don't say anything to them either, I have nothing to say to them. I gaze back, my stare never wavering. They're trying to get me to admit my sins, I know they are. They want me to confess, to call for forgiveness. Ask God for some kind of forgiveness for all that I have done. 

I laugh in their faces. God is not here, he never was for me. He never will be. I am too far gone, I am the epitome of Hell. All of my sins gather on my back like old friends hugging me from behind. I welcome them, I have never rejected them. I embrace their cool grips. I am them, and they are me. Without my sins, I am not Osmosis Jones anymore. My sins define me. 

My hands are still pouring the blood of all my victims. I distantly wonder if it will ever stop. I doubt it will -- I wouldn't be surprised if I have killed everyone in the entire world. If I was the only one left, the only being left standing. Standing in this sterile, sterile room. I lick my lips. 

I am Osmosis Jones. I do not know what date it is, but I know today is the day my sins will out-weigh me. Their comforting grip is no longer warm -- it has grown desperate, clinging to me until I cannot breathe. I try to pry them off my back with my bloody hands, but they just become tighter. I grasp at them, trying to ease them, but it useless. They will not stop until I am as flat as Carter. 

I see my destiny in front of me. I see the long road of Hell I must walk. I close my eyes and smile, welcoming in this road. It will be a long walk -- an eternity, in fact. i will walk barefoot in Vietnam forever. I will pay for my sins forever, be stuck in this loop of insanity until the end of time itself -- and even past that. But it is alright, I accept this fate. It is what I must do. 

"March 18th." Carter whispers from underneath me. "That is the date. This is the day you die." 

March 18th, 2016. That is the day, I think hazily. This is the day I die.

**EPILOGUE**

Major Connors walks through the maximum security cells; Cells reserved for those who are the biggest threat to humanity. As he walks on, he looks at the names of the prisoners, then looks inside of the one-way mirror window. In the all-white room they are usually rocking or mumbling to themselves, going mad with the total amount of solitude. They are completely insane -- too far gone to be a proper threat. 

Finally, Connors gets to the end of the hallway. He looks at the name of the prisoner on the door -- _Osmosis Jones_. He has heard about Jones -- the most wanted criminal all around the world. He has violated countless human rights laws -- a true psychopath, only bent on destruction and death. 

Connors thought it would be interesting to see how Jones is faring in the sterile room. He looks through the window and instantly recoils. There is blood everywhere, almost like there was an explosion. Jones was in the middle of the room, bloody stumps where his hands should be. There is flesh in-between his teeth -- blue flesh. It was his own. He has eaten his own hands in his insanity. 

However, as Connors looks around the room, he sees words written on the wall in blood. It seems that it was the last thing that Jones had did before his gruesome suicide. 

_They're watching. They never look away._

**Author's Note:**

> so this was a nice little story to read to the kids! THAnks for reading. !!!


End file.
